Arctic Chess Challenge 2010: Kobalia clinches it

8/8/2010 – The Arctic Chess Challenge, an open held in the Norwegian city, Tromsø, brought 164 players from all corners of the world, of which 25 GMs. The event was led by Loek van Wely until the last round, when Mikhail Kobalia clinched it with a dramatic last-round victory. Mexican champion Manuel Leon Hoyos came in second on tie-break. Øystein Brekke reports.

Everyone uses ChessBase, from the World Champion to the amateur next door. Start your personal success story with ChessBase 14 and enjoy your chess even more!

Along with the ChessBase 14 program you can access the Live Database of 8 million games, and receive three months of free ChesssBase Account Premium membership and all of our online apps! Have a look today!

International action in Tromsø

by Øystein Brekke

164 players from 36 nations gathered for this year’s Arctic Chess Challenge in the Chess Olympiad candidate city of Tromsø. With 25 GMs and 12 of them rated above 2600 this may be the strongest Swiss tournament ever held in Norway.

Summer night in Tromsø

Before the last round Loek Van Wely had been leading the event, and had thus far lived up to the expectations.
He was in the lead with 7.0/8 accompanied by the surprise of the tournament: young Mexican Manuel Leon Hoyos, 21 years old.

Manuel is the reigning Mexican champion actually comes from the same Yucatan village as the sensational player of the 1920s, Carlos Torre (1905-78). Whereas Torre stopped his great career at the age of 21, Manuel Leon Hoyos's seems just starting.

Manuel Leon Hoyos (2556) – Bartosz Socko (2646)

In a dramatic last round, Mikhail Kobalia overcame Loek van Wely in a startling win.

That meant that he was certain of a shared win if Hoyos was unable to beat Indian GM Chanda Sandipan. Despite pressing hard in a long game, he only managed a draw, and they shared the 1st-2nd money prize, both on 7,5/9. As it turned out Kobalia took the title on tie-break. Trailing on 7 points were Sandipan, van Wely, B. Socko, Petrov and Turner.

Last year’s winner Monika Socko got the prize for best female, while Frode O. O. Urkedal and Heikki Westerinen got the prizes for best junior and best senior, respectively.

Final standings

Pl

Name

Rtg

Score

Perf.

1

GM Mikhail Kobalia

2648

7,5

2724

2

GM Manuel Leon Hoyos

2556

7,5

2749

3

GM Chanda Sandipan

2637

7,0

2709

4

GM Loek Van Wely

2677

7,0

2742

5

GM Bartosz Socko

2646

7,0

2745

6

GM Marijan Petrov

2535

7,0

2624

7

GM Matthew J Turner

2506

7,0

2598

8

GM Julian Radulski

2574

6,5

2616

9

GM Ivan Ivanisevic

2611

6,5

2615

10

GM Yuri Drozdovskij

2624

6,5

2625

11

GM Anatoly Bykhovsky

2487

6,5

2563

12

GM Igor Khenkin

2632

6,5

2552

13

GM Alexander Moiseenko

2667

6,5

2559

14

GM Sergei Azarov

2600

6,5

2549

15

GM Normunds Miezis

2518

6,5

2466

GM Heikki Westerinen

A Finnish-Norwegian veteran
GM Heikki Westerinen (66) has been a popular guest in Norwegian tournaments for more than 50(!) years. Nobody has played more internationals in Norway, and few have played more chess olympiads. His first time in Norway was the international youth tournament of Trondheim 1958/59 with our famous chess organizer Arnold Eikrem (1932-96).

Arctic Blitz

Loek Van Wely

The Arctic Blitz tournament was won by Loek van Wely, with 88 players fighting for eight prizes totaling NOK 10,000 late Thursday. It was exciting until the last round, but the elo-favorite Dutchman won in the end in tie breaks ahead of IM Helgi Dam Ziska. Both had 7.5 points and tie-break points decided.

13-year-old Alexandr Bortnik in action, scored a 2600+ performance in the blitz event.

However, there was no doubt about who was the crowd favorite: the 13 year-old Alexandr Bortnik. He is definitely on even ground with the grandmasters in this discipline. It is worth remembering that he won the trip to Tromsø by blitz games on ICC, and we can certainly say we haven't heard the last from him!

See also

12/30/2017 – The "King Salman World Blitz & Rapid Championships 2017" in Riyadh from Decemer 26th to 30th. At the half way point of the Blitz Championship, the defending champ Sergey Karjakin leads with 9 / 11. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave is a half point back followed by Peter Svidler and a trio of Chinese: Wang, Ding and Yu on 8 / 11. In the Women's Pia Cramling has a full point lead with 9½ / 11. Watch live with Rounds 11 to 22 from 12:00 Noon CET (6:00 AM EST) on Saturday with commentary by E. Miroshnichenko & WGM K. Tsatsalashvili.

See also

12/6/2017 – Imagine this: you tell a computer system how the pieces move — nothing more. Then you tell it to learn to play the game. And a day later — yes, just 24 hours — it has figured it out to the level that beats the strongest programs in the world convincingly! DeepMind, the company that recently created the strongest Go program in the world, turned its attention to chess, and came up with this spectacular result.

Video

On this 60 mins video we are going to concentrate on a simple, very solid idea in the main line Scandinavian, which even Magnus Carlsen has used to win games. Black focusses on making his life easy in the opening and forces White to work very hard to get advantage – but it is doubtful if White can get an advantage. Club players are always on the lookout for effective, time-saving solutions and here we have just that. Accompany FIDE Senior Trainer and IM Andrew Martin on this 60 mins video. You can learn a new opening system in 60 mins and start to play it with confidence on the very same day!